I have some questions....

1. On my fretted bass, i have got green\greyish discoloration at spots up the maple neck. It looks terrible! I tried cleaning it off, but it did'nt work. My neck is so to say unfinished (super thin layer of laquer), so i hope it isn't fungus or moisture damage? I'm worried!

2. I noticed that my new Ibanez fretless is very scratchy and full of marks, way more so than my 7 year old fretted Fender. I'm not sure why it has got so scratchy, either poor finish, people playing it at the store where i bougth it, or the fact that i haven't Polished it with GHS Guitar Gloss since i got it, which i often did with my Fretted. Anyway, is there something i could do to remove all the marks, scrathes and lines? It's almost impossible for me to get any kind of car wax\polish or a buffering machine though, so....

3. More stripped screw madness. I'm starting to think that all the P.U adjustment screws on my Ibanez Fretless is made out of crap. When adjusting the J pickup yesterday, everything went fine, but all of a sudden i stripped the screw head. Again. The problem is though, that the screw head is "inside" the pickup, i.e it's flush with the top of the pickup. Hard do describe what i mean . The point is, that all i can see or reach is the stripped head of the screw. The last time i stripped a screw, i used a dremel to cut a flat head cavity in the screw to get it out, which won't work now though .

Without pics I don't know what to say about the neck discoloration. How bad could it be? I can't imagine it being a structural issue. If nothing else it is adding FUNK!

Clean your bass. No magic bullet. Again... that is not wear, it is MOJO.

Get good screwdrivers and use a little wax to lube the screw threads and you should have less problems with screw breakage/strippage. I actually use cheap lip balm as a thread lubricant because it is a very convenient package and doesn't mess up my toolbox.

As for the screw problem I encountered the same thing on a used bass I purchased. The only way I could remove two pickup screws, which were recessed into the pickup, was to drill out the heads of the screws, remove the pickup and then back out the screws with a pair of pliers. Everything went well.

Be forewarned ! Its VERY easy to make a mistake or slipup and do serious damage to the finish.